


Both Hands

by Yahtzee



Category: Alias, Covert Affairs
Genre: Crossover, Multi, polyamorous
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 19:52:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yahtzee/pseuds/Yahtzee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Annie can't figure out how to handle her attraction to Jai Wilcox and Auggie Anderson -- or the fact that they seem to be attracted to one another as well.  Then she gets some advice from a veteran agent who has a tangled history of her own ...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Both Hands

**Author's Note:**

  * For [st_aurafina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/st_aurafina/gifts).



> This is set in 2010, so after the first season of "Covert Affairs" and more than four years after the final season of "Alias." Great thanks are due to my beta, Ruth.

_Buenos Aires, Argentina_

 

Annie adjusted her sunglasses as she walked into the Recoleta café. She could still pull off a backpacker vibe, with the help of a clean-scrubbed face, Penn State T-shirt and rucksack slung over one shoulder. Non-threatening, casual, eye candy at most: That was the idea.

Although Recoleta was one of the more luxurious neighborhoods in center of Buenos Aires, filled with Edwardian wedding-cake townhouses and palm-lined pathways, this café drew a varied clientele. Annie’s jeans and Keds were no more out of place than the Rolex watches of the businessmen in the corner or the white designer suit of a stylish woman sipping coffee in the window table.

Her attention, however, was on a rather nondescript man in the corner. He didn’t seem particularly old nor young, rich nor poor. Annie, however, had memorized his face on the flight down the night before. This man was Antonio Reyes – a small-time arms merchant looking to break into the big time. Her job: To intercept him before he made his meet, witness it in detail, and use the information against him later, to turn him into an unwilling double agent.

She stepped up to him and, affecting a clumsy accent to her Spanish, said, “Do you know the way to the cemetery?” Recoleta’s enormously overbuilt, grandiose cemetery was a top tourist attraction, in part because of the grave of Evita Peron and in part because of its own overripe, Gothic splendor. Annie added gave Reyes her best grin; she was fairly modest by nature, but she knew what that grin could do.

“American,” he said, in English.

“Is my accent that bad?”

“I recognize it. I used to go to school in the States, at Pitt.” Antonio observed her for a minute. “Won’t you sit down?”

An invitation? That was more than she’d been angling for. Maybe she needed to be more careful about deploying the grin.

Hesitantly, Annie took a seat, rationalizing that Antonio would no doubt shoo her away before the big shot was due to arrive. This meeting would make him remember her even better, and render the later blackmailing quicker and easier. Probably he’d noticed her hesitation, so she tried to use it. “I should mention – I have a boyfriend back in the States.”

“And I should mention that I have a gun.”

Annie’s eyes widened as Antonio pulled a gun from a holster she hadn’t seen beneath his bulky jacket. Adrenalin flooded into, making her skin prickle and her breathing shallow. _Crap, crap, crap._ He was keeping the small pistol low and level, not drawing attention, and apparently no one else spoke English. Annie instinctively understood that calling for help or trying to flee would only result in her getting shot. So she remained motionless, while the businessmen talked, and the woman in the white business suit began to bus her tray, and the man behind the counter steamed milk with a loud hiss.

“You think I can’t spot a CIA spook at twenty paces?” he muttered, mouth twisting into a grin. “You’re not spoiling this for me, little girl.”

“Don’t do anything rash,” she began.

He just grinned wider. “Oh, I’m gonna kill you real slow.”

Which was when the woman in the white business suit slammed her tray alongside his head.

Annie flung herself out of range of the gun, but as she looked back, she saw that the woman in white had already disarmed him. She stood over Reyes, white suit unmussed, a half-bored expression on her face. Everyone else in the café was backing away in alarm, but Annie knew she had to try to salvage this situation. To the woman she said, in her real, flawless Spanish, “This is official business. You should not interfere.”

In real, flawless English, the woman replied, “Actually, this guy is my official business.” She gave Annie a look. “Langley?”

A simple word that few observers would understand, but that Annie recognized with a shock. This woman was CIA too.

**

A couple hours later, at the safe house, Annie sat in its shabby, half-stocked kitchen and cradled her phone to her ear as Auggie explained what the hell had just happened.

“Her name is Sydney Bristow,” he said. “Black ops. That’s literally almost all I know about her; obviously, if you go black ops, your records get sealed. Before that, though, she had a list of commendations as long as your arm. Apparently she was a double agent for a while – no idea how she got into that so young – and there’s something weird here … huh.”

“Weird as in, the CIA sent two separate parties in to tail the same suspect?”

Auggie chuckled. “We only wish that was weird. The truth is, black ops groups have to work independently from us, so this isn’t the first time missions have overlapped. I mean, it’s rare, but what happened to you today isn’t unheard of.”

Quickly Annie glanced through the doorway to peer into the equally rundown living room of the safe house, where Sydney was embroiled in her own cellphone conversation. She seemed to be speaking to a very small child, and with a smile of pure delight on her face. Annie wondered if she, too, was an aunt to nieces who liked being silly on the phone; it seemed impossible to be both a spy and a mother, and surely being a black ops agent made that even harder. “Okay, if it’s not unheard of to run into a black ops agent on a mission, does that mean Joan’s not going to give me shit about it?”

“Joan will give you shit about this until the end of time.”

“Figures,” she sighed. “Well, then, what did you see that was weird?”

“Sydney Bristow was listed as deceased -- and then reinstated to active duty two years later. Without any explanation. I’ve seen some bizarre stuff in CIA personnel files, but that takes the cake.”

Annie wondered if her resume would look as colorful in a few years. “So I’m not bringing Antonio Reyes in.”

“Sadly for him, no. I don’t know what black ops wants with him, but the word from on high, aka Arthur, is that we’re deferring to them here. Where is he?”

“In the basement, being guarded by the big lugs I brought and the big lugs she brought. So he’s going nowhere. Thanks for looking through the old files for me – ” She caught herself, but too late; she’d already reminded him of the last thing she wanted to bring up.

Auggie’s voice brightened, as though that would mask the tension: “So I guess you’re on your way home.”

“Yeah. I’ll see you back in D.C.”

“Looking forward to it.”

“Me too.”

Auggie’s end of the connection clicked off, shutting out everything they needed to say but hadn’t.

The tangled web of feelings between her, Auggie and Jai Wilcox had always been difficult to understand. Annie knew she cared for both of them – first as friends, then as more. She knew she was wildly attracted to each of them, in their different ways: Auggie with his soft brown hair, his sardonic humor, his insight into her fears, and his intense, almost unspoken devotion to her; Jai with his angular cheekbones, his effortless grace, his protective nature and his not-quite-hidden desire to please.

Their dislike of each other had at first seemed no more than a workplace rivalry gone sour. But Annie had come to notice the unspoken edge between them – the sense of rejection that underlay their anger with one another. She had heard Auggie take in a sharp breath when he recognized Jai’s voice. Had seen the way Jai’s dark eyes sometimes swept over Auggie when he thought nobody else was looking.

If their connection had excluded her – well, Annie would’ve understood that. She’d have sat up with Danielle eating her sister’s prize-winning petit fours and bitching about how “all the best ones are gay.”

Instead, if anything, they seemed as interested in her as they did in each other. Possibly more.

A real love triangle, with three solid sides, none of which had been acknowledged by anyone involved … so far as Annie knew, though she’d have bet a month’s salary that neither Jai nor Auggie had never spoken a word to each other about their attraction. She could resolve it by choosing one or the other, but she didn’t want to. What she wanted – that was too much to ask for.

As she sighed, her phone rang again, and – speak of the devil – Jai said, “Are you all right? I heard about Reyes.”

“I’m fine. A black ops agent saved my butt, basically.”

“What tipped Reyes off? Were you made?”

“I don’t think so. He said something about going to Pitt. Anybody really from Penn State would immediately have started giving him hell about that. I didn’t think of it until a moment too late.”

“It could happen to anyone,” Jai said, a little too understanding – he never knew how to draw the line between sympathy and condescension. And yet he meant so well, and never understood how well he pushed people away even as he tried to draw them closer.

Were she and Auggie the only two people who had ever seen through that seemingly arrogant side of him? If so, their split must have hurt him terribly. Not that she could ever talk to him about it –

“Annie?” he said, and she realized he’d tried asking her something while her mind was wandering. “Are you still there?”

“Yeah. Sorry. It’s been a crazy day. Can’t wait to get back to D.C.”

“Can’t wait to see you again.” There was the warmth most people missed. “Glad everything’s worked out.”

“Me too.”

“By the way – when Joan starts in on this – just remember that on one of her early missions, she failed to apprehend a target because one of her high heels broke.”

Annie put her mouth to her lips to stifle a laugh. “Are you serious?”

“Deadly serious. Don’t mention it, for God’s sake. The last person who mentioned it got assigned to a long-term mission in Chad. Just … remember it.”

“Gotcha. See you back home.”

As she folded her phone shut, Sydney walked into the safe house kitchen, her own call obviously ended. “So, do I check out?”

“Turns out you do. Do I?”

“Nice to meet you, Annie Walker.” Sydney opened a few cabinets in the kitchen until she found what she sought: a small bottle of rum.. “Tell me you have some Diet Coke.”

“Better. Diet Coke with Lime.”

“You brought that all the way from America?”

“Addiction is an ugly thing,” Annie said. They both grinned, and she thought their smiles were maybe a little alike.

**

By their third rum and coke, Annie was sure of it. “Seriously, we look like twins or something. We could be … clones.”

“Don’t talk about clones.” Sydney held up one hand. “Really. Don’t go there.”

Annie could feel her eyes getting wider. “Human clones are real?”

“Don’t go there,” Sydney repeated, more firmly.

“Okay. Okay. It’s just – we look a lot alike. We’d look just alike if one of us wore a wig.”

Sydney laughed, leaning her head back against the old safe-house sofa. “Last year, I made a new rule: No more wigs. They used to give them to me at least two missions out of three. Not necessary. Fun, sometimes – but not by the eight hundredth time.”

“I’ll try one sometime.” Obviously her op-tech guys needed to work a little harder, Annie thought. “You’ve really been at this a while, huh?”

“Sometimes it feels like forever.” Sydney’s smile was rueful as she looked down into her rum and coke. “Actually, my husband and I are probably going to leave the agency soon. We could take the occasional freelance assignment, maybe, but … our daughter’s only going to be young once, and we’ve been talking about having another baby in a year or two. This business is rough on families.” Her voice caught on the last word, and her face briefly took on the hard, merciless look it had worn when she was beating Reyes down to the ground. The expression faded so quickly that Annie almost wondered if she’d imagined it.

Hugging her knees to her chest, Annie said, “You married another operative?”

Sydney’s grin returned, brighter than before. “Yeah. My old handler.”

“There’s something about that reassuring voice in your ear – the guy who’s guiding you home.”

“Yeah, there is.” Sydney didn’t pry further, just looked at Annie with calm, understanding eyes. Maybe she didn’t have to ask questions, though: There was something about Sydney Bristow that made you want to tell her your secrets. Not a bad quality for a spy. Annie decided to work on that. First, though, she was going to spill some secrets.

“It’s difficult,” Annie began, swirling her almost-melted ice cubes in her drink. “Trying to figure out where to draw the line between the professional and the personal. The agency seems determined to blur it, most of the time.”

“Tell me about it.”

“And then there’s this guy – this wonderful man who goes out into the field with me, and always has my back, and I know he wants more, but – ” Okay, the rest wasn’t Sydney’s business. If she couldn’t even talk about the possibility of a three-way relationship with Jai and Auggie, she didn’t have a chance of explaining it to a woman she’d met earlier in the day. “I’m trying to maintain the status quo. I know that’s the best option, probably. But it’s hard.”

“You want my advice, Annie?”

“You managed to remain in the CIA for more than a decade and get happily married, have a child and stay alive. So yeah, I want to hear how you pulled that off.”

“To hell with the status quo.” Sydney leaned closer, intent now. “If you want a real life in this business, you have to fight for it. Every inch of the way. Don’t let people you love shut you out, even if it seems like they have their reasons. Don’t let rules and regulations keep you from doing what you have to do to get the life you want.”

Annie nodded slowly. “Okay.”

Sydney reached into her pocket and pulled out a small photo wallet; a little girl perhaps four years old grinned out from the frame. “My father had one of these, with a picture of me. Carried it around with him all the time to remind himself that his daughter was the most important person in his life. But he was never home, so I never understood that. And he forgot how to make me understand. Now I carry my daughter’s picture to remind myself not to make my father’s mistake.” Her eyes were dark now, clouded by painful memory. “It’s so easy to tell ourselves that loving someone is enough. It’s not enough. They have to know it. They have to feel it. So, no matter how much I love this job – and, God, it took me forever to admit that I love it, but I do – I have to leave soon. For my daughter. So she’ll have the childhood I never did.”

Annie weighed all of that. The part that she was stuck on was the fact that Sydney’s father had been a spy too – her husband and her dad? And her? Damn, talk about keeping it all in the family. Sydney’s history made Jai’s father issues look mild by comparison.

Then she thought about Jai’s mother – the double agent Wilcox had extracted, married and then abandoned – and decided not to make any more assumptions about that.

Sydney continued, “I’m not saying that you can’t strike a balance, or that it’s impossible to be a good spy and a good mother. Or to have a fulfilling life without being anybody’s wife or mother, you know? If that’s what you want. My issues aren’t your issues. All I’m saying – as somebody who’s on the same road but started a few years earlier – make up your mind about what’s most important to you. Then grab onto it with both hands and never let go.”

“Both hands,” Annie said. “Check.”

**

 _Washington, D.C.  
Three Days Later_

“Thanks for the ride,” Auggie said as they walked into the bar. Although he had his laser cane – and by now probably knew the floor plan of this place by heart – he rested his hand lightly upon Annie’s arm. “I’m glad we’re doing this.”

“You always enjoy it when everybody from the office comes here.”

“Yeah, but – I’m glad it’s just us tonight.” The gentle flirtation moved her, and encouraged her. But she had her own plans for the evening.

“It’s not just us,” she said as she peered through the crowd, then raised her other hand in a wave. “Jai!”

Jai grinned at her, then stiffened slightly as he saw Auggie with her. In her ear, Auggie whispered, “Not fair, Walker.”

“You’ll thank me later.” Annie resolutely guided Auggie toward the table Jai had saved, and once they were all seated, she caught the eye of a waitress. “We’ll have a pitcher of sangria. And another pitcher after that. Keep ‘em coming, is what I’m saying.”

“Good call,” Jai said, running one hand through his black curls. He seemed ill at ease, and Annie understood why – and intended to put a stop to it, for once and for all.

“So,” she said. “We’re gonna get a little drunk. And then we’re all going to talk about … all the stuff we’ve been avoiding talking about for way too long. Finally, we’re going to figure out how we can all be happy.”

Jai still didn’t get it. Auggie’s face went very still; he got it but didn’t quite believe her yet. Well, he would.

 _Figure out what you want. Grab onto it with both hands. Hold on tight._

Annie wanted Auggie and Jai. If they wanted each other on any level – and she suspected they did – and they both wanted her – and she hoped they did –

She stretched her hands across the marble-topped table. With her left, she took hold of Auggie’s hand; with the right, Jai’s. His dark eyes met hers, and she felt a thrill of possibility that might just be hope.

 _Hold on tight_ , Annie told herself again. _With both hands._

 

END


End file.
